Perry's home-state reality check

Patrick J. Svitek

July 30, 2014Updated: July 30, 2014 8:47pm

Photo: Eric Gay, STF

Attorney General Greg Abbott, right, listens as Gov. Rick Perry speaks at a news conference in the Governor's press room. Perry said he is deploying National Guard troops ﻿to the ﻿Mexican border to combat criminals that Republican state leaders say exploit a surge of children and families entering the U.S. illegally.

Attorney General Greg Abbott, right, listens as Gov. Rick Perry...

Gov. Rick Perry has enjoyed mostly positive coverage stemming from his decision last week to send up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the border. He's awakened most days to national headlines about his rising poll numbers, growing itinerary in early presidential voting states and overall political makeover since his ill-fated run for president in 2012. Sure, Democrats are accusing him of cheapening the crisis with a political stunt, but other than U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, few of them are going mano-a-mano on the issue with Perry under the glare of the national spotlight.

At a news conference July 21 announcing the deployment and in reports since then, Perry has waved off questions about the finer points of his plan, keeping the focus on the urgency of the situation and its implications for public safety. Who's paying for this? We're looking at you, federal government. What about reports that crime along the border is down? Spare me your anecdotes. Are you militarizing the border? That's an offensive suggestion, quite frankly.

On Tuesday, fundamental questions about Operation Strong Safety became more difficult to brush off as some of the same officials who stood by Perry at the news conference admitted state law enforcement agencies didn't recommend he dispatch troops to the border, though they support the move now that it's done. They also told the state House Select Committee on the Fiscal Impact of Texas Border Support Operations that that they didn't know how Perry settled for the maximum number of troops he can deploy – 1,000, a nice, round number that makes for an easy headline.

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The officials' testimonies were by no means bombshells, but they brought into focus the questions that remain mostly unanswered more than a week after Perry's announcement. Reflecting Wednesday on the hearing, Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner of Houston called it "a little disturbing."

"Why 1,000 [troops]? Why not 100? How long is this surge going to continue? What is the matrix in which we evaluate success?" asked Turner, a member of the committee. "These questions need to be answered, and they need to be answered sooner rather than later."

Perry's office responded to the hearing with a statement that didn't offer any new insight into his decision-making process, reiterating the governor's declaration that Texas will take action on border security if the federal government doesn't. On a conference call with the New Hampshire Republican Party earlier Tuesday, he suggested the state is willing to spend whatever it takes to secure the border and isn't sweating the fine print for the time being.

Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak argues Perry knows what he's doing, having dealt before with the National Guard and visited the border multiple times.

"For Gov. Perry, he believed that doing nothing was not an option," Mackowiak wrote in an email. "I understand that opponents will nitpick his decision, but does anyone truly believe that we needed fewer personnel on the border?"

Still, the hearing served as a kind of home-state reality check on the deployment, which has cemented Perry's role as a leading voice on border security for national Republicans. He hinted at the deployment during a weekend trip to Iowa earlier this month, touted it on Sean Hannity's show and on top of it all, used the border message to build a database of potential supporters for a presidential run.

Back home, the story doesn't fit as neatly into a Fox News ticker, and lawmakers are bracing for the likelihood that the Obama administration scoffs at Texas' request for funding relief and leaves the state with the bill. While other Republicans in the state were cheering Perry's decision last week, the office of state House Speaker Joe Straus issued a more muted statement saying the chamber will "consider all options" for paying costs related to the border surge.

Eva DeLuna Castro, senior budget analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, estimates that the border surge could cost Texas about $220 million by next August. It would be only about one-fifth of a percent of the state's budget, but the projection could invite spirited discussions about whether the money could be more wisely spent elsewhere and how to do it.

"It's not that Texas doesn't have the money," Castro said. "It's the politics of explaining it."

It remains to be seen how far Perry can be dragged into the nuts and bolts of the plan while he repairs his national profile and weighs a presidential bid in 2016. Of course, he could always run out the clock on his 14th and final year as governor before he's forced to confront the fiscal reality.

"The governor will be gone, but those of us in the legislative process will be left with the bill," Turner said.

It's also unclear whether the details even matter to the people who may hold political sway with Perry. He'll head to Iowa and New Hampshire next month extolling Texas' staring contest with the federal government over border security, and chances are slim that small-town activists will press him on the deployment's still-to-be-determined source of funding. And although some tea party leaders in Texas are still pushing for a special session of the Legislature on immigration, they expressed little concern last week about how the plan gets funded. One said she'll leave that up to the "number-crunchers in Austin," while another said he has no problem with the state tapping its rainy day fund, another politically charged debate.

But that doesn't mean Perry won't keep feeling the heat back home, where the fiscal uncertainty spawned by the border crisis looms over the upcoming session of the Legislature, and Democrats are eager to bring his political star back down to Earth. It's unlikely the Legislature's longtime minority can fully accomplish that, but as Perry looks to sail out of office on a high note, the unanswered questions can dim the national spotlight a few notches.